1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicular lamp manufacturing method and to a vehicular lamp and more particularly to a method for manufacturing a vehicular lamp that has a heating wire therein and to such a vehicular lamp.
2. Description of the Related Art
In some vehicular lamps, a wire is installed in the front lens so that the wire is electrically heated for the purpose of defrosting the front lens and melting snow on the front lens.
The front lens of a vehicular lamp generally includes an emission surface portion that emits light from the light source and a flange portion that projects from the outer peripheral portion of the emission surface portion toward a substantially perpendicular direction and is attached to a lamp body; and the flange portion projects out from the perimeter of the outer peripheral portion of the emission surface portion so that the front lens is connected or fixed to the lamp body by such a method as vibration welding and hot plate welding or by a sealing material.
However, the flange portion formed along the perimeter of the outer peripheral portion of the light emission surface portion would interfere with the installation work of the heating wire. In other words, during the wire installation operation that uses a wire installation head for installing a wire (heating wire) in the light emission surface portion, the flange portion of the front lens obstructs the movement of the wire installation head.
Furthermore, due to the flange portion, the shape of the front lens is complicated; and since it is necessary to form the front lens by injection molding in which a melted resin is injected into a molding die, the manufacturing costs tend to be high, and the manufacturing time for the front lens tends to be longer.